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The Summer's Eye

by Jackson & the Wargonauts

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1.
I'd rather not be bothered by the Catholic girl below Because I can't keep writing songs about which I don't want her to know While she's holding hands with someone whom I'll probably despise I should shut her out and focus on the true love of my life, But I don't... I'd rather not be bothered by this reoccurring theme That compiles itself inside my head, erasing all my dreams And replacing them with risky plans in which I want no part But I cannot reach inside my chest and redirect my heart, So I don't... And discontented I love the lie that is my life, that I tell from time to time Of how it sets my body free from the music that interrupts my poetry But nothing gets worse after the pain starts to hurt And I fight a hundred wars, write a thousand songs That will never get sung or be done. Thus, I'd rather not be bothered by the Catholic girl below Because my future's clear of every calling curse of the unknown So I take a few steps back and find there's love lost in the lure And I stomp my feet and grind my teeth and curse human nature, But on it goes... © Jackson Wargo 2010
2.
Please, don't cut your hair and change who you are and become a memory. I'd forget your name, and you'd do the same to me too quickly. You once were a dream who smiled back at me, and let me keep clinging. You pulled back your hair, kissed my despair, and sent me home singing, O behold! where the lovers go I'll be home when the sun grows cold. Be my fine tooth comb until you choose not to grow, and know that i'm not ready to fall in love with just anybody... Please, don't cut your hair and change who you are, because you can still belong. Yeah... it's been a while, it's been 31 miles, it's been two years and six songs. So, I won't shave my face, or choose to replace you while you journey. I'll get in the car and drive to wherever you are, and reclaim your yearning. O behold! where the lovers go I'll be home when the sun grows cold. Be my fine tooth comb until you choose not to grow, and know that i'm not ready to fall in love with just anybody... Darling, I walked to your house, and turned right around to write you new lyrics— So if you must cut your hair, don't let it cover your ears, and maybe you'll hear this. © Jackson Wargo 2011
3.
It's difficult to explain the pesty, cycling phase That is the root of my smile From one year ago today, the feeling hasn't changed And left me distorting every mile Between where we met and outside your house Where the love would reveal itself When I discovered that the summer's eye was watching me While I was unaware Until I looked down past her bare feet and saw Roman sandals sitting there My heartbeat leaped alone Out of my chest, in remodels of old homes. Meanwhile, summer's eye just winks and blinds me And it comes up through a friend, But the cycle is worth the loneliness at the end. It's difficult to understand just what grabs this boyish man With the force of all belonging But one year ago today, I sat here in the same place Writing the lyrics with the morning As I reached for the phone, The guilt brought me home, and I'd never felt more alone. When I discovered that the summer's eye was watching me While I was unaware Until I looked down past her bare feet and saw Roman sandals sitting there My heartbeat leaped alone Out of my chest, in remodels of old homes. Meanwhile, summer's eye just winks and blinds me And it comes up through a friend, But the cycle is worth the loneliness at the end. Southern girls in summer dresses Kiss my lips and invert my senses, Remove all decision rights, and send a signal back to the summer's I was just a mold of memory To absorb and bask in every Particle of sacred light Sent to be my guide I was so lucky that the summer's eye was watching me While I was unaware Until I looked down past her bare feet and saw Roman sandals sitting there My heartbeat leaped alone Out of my chest, in remodels of old homes. Meanwhile, summer's eye just winks and blinds me And it all occurs again, But the cycle is worth the loneliness at the end Therefore, I'm thankful that we were once friends. © Jackson Wargo 2010
4.
Hooray for hypocrites! for religious biases! your pretentious smile is a smack from the face. I've got some external viruses and personal alliances you claim that my reliance is completely astray... no way. I was a lonely Catholic boy in Philadelphia’s pit filled up with students and with demons and with all of your bullshit it was a Christian environment with no sign of God in it my brother was a prophet when he told me to get out right away. Hooray for mission trips that ruin relationships! the African continent needs you there today! but I'm just as confident that you're the type of protestant who hoards all of her quarters but is clearly made of nothing but cheap change. I was a helpless, imbecilic little lover of you and I was worthy of your pity in your Ivy League dorm room but your eyes were wide and I could tell you had not been crying and you'd got better at lying 'cause you told me you didn't know what to say. So come on! invite me to dwell in your lack of Christian hospitality! So come on! apologize! and not in a minor third descending line just try and I’ll open my eyes as if it were for the very first time! and be blinded by the darkness So hooray for blasphemy! for orgasmic ecstasy you find in god complexities 'cause you think you're saved but if you really feared your God you wouldn't know just what he wanted there'd be whole parts of your body that are not even worthy to pray. You were a stubborn little girl inside a secular cult with a cross and a label and techniques to feel guilt but you're not thus victimized and my feelings intensified while I was feasting on my pride so I'll just get out of your way. © Jackson Wargo 2011
5.
Pelican Hill 07:13
Pelican Hill On Pelican Hill, I stared at the world I saw lights, but no people— I heard sound, but no quarrels. I parked the car at a park off the street, And the view of the county had me counting the cities. God was there too, but not all too close to me So I reached in my pocket for my mom’s wooden Rosary. I like to believe that His voice then came down— I’d write what He said, but I’d just put words in His mouth— And in one sanctified second, through my sigh of the cross, All of my sorrowful heartache was gone, But it snapped back and tied a tight noose around my neck, And it spun me around—made me hang my own head. So, I stomped to the car, and I hit the ignition While thinking of my current, failing ambitions— I’ve now been stood up on each end of the country, And no one has called me to say that they miss me. On Pelican Hill, I sang to the world the songs of my brothers who write their struggles with girls. We’re and army of marksmen who pitifully march: We keep aiming; keep firing; keep missing your hearts And retreat back to places like Pelican Hill, Where we scream up to God one more verse of our will Until we have to leave, because our throats are too sore, And drive home through the echoes of our scratchy, raw vocal chords. Pelican Hill, from which I drove home To let my spider-webbed typewriter assure me I’m still alone, But I passed a Church and I genuflected, And I hope I felt the soul of my dead love being resurrected— Perching itself up on Pelican Hill So that I might retrieve it lest I remain still With this dissonant tension inside of my head— Stop my whining in lyric; start my living instead. But if I knew how to cry, O I swear that I would. I’d make a salt water ocean comprised of my tears and blood. On Pelican Hill, I stared at the world— I saw myself, but no angels; I saw God, but no miracles. © Jackson Wargo 2011
6.
Porcelain, Actually One time I stayed up half of the night, Looked at the sky and I saw a light rising from the west side So it could start the day in a brand new way and say I don't have to force the good to stay, Just hold it in the right place. I looked back and told it I could do that Then I sat and analyzed the facts as it began to fade into black. I have seen lips and fingers curving with a smile I can see the moving colors, but it's going to be a little while Before I say the words "I love you" again, 'cause I'm afraid I'll never want it to end. But I have changed, I'm through with childish games And advancing in ways that take me back a space, and that's how I will remain. But I know myself better than anyone else, So I'm taking my dusty book off of the shelf, because there's a story to tell that's just now writing itself I'm seeing scarves and sandals that could make me smile But I'm hearing life say, "slow down—it's going to be a little while—because of certain circumstances, you will get to know what real romance is." You say your skin is more like porcelain Keeping you clean through thick and through thin, No matter where it has been. You and I talk, it seems to help a lot, Exchanging lyrical thoughts from our favorite songs. Maybe we'll give it a shot. © Jackson Wargo 2009
7.
Hiraeth 03:49
Lately, while watching bodies pass I've started thinking, but what good comes from that? 'cause I'm believing everyone's broken here with the illusion that people mature with years and I find life here's just a little more alone than I expected and I can't articulate exactly how I've been affected by my thoughts being my only source of local dialogue and the guitar with me and my Rosary become my simple response so please don't blame me, because these are the chords I know and when I play them, it makes me feel at home while I am searching throughout these crowded halls for a person with whom I'm comfortable and I find life here's just a little more alone than I expected and it's forcing me to make myself completely independent of anyone or anything with the potential to react but the guitar with me and my rosary are the ones who are talking back so if the morning wakes me dreaming out the night then let the morning warn the evening to get ready to comply and stop the sun from flowing deeper through the night because the lack of light brings morning to life. and I have this question that I'm inclined to ask of my perception of them or this or that but it's confusing and I can't understand if I'm the victim, the problem, or God's instrument and I find life here's just a little more alone than i expected and it's not untrue to say that I've been wholly misdirected by everyone and everything who's ever made it out alive the guitar with me and my rosary are collectively surprised at social life's easy demise and how I begrudgingly comply while being respectful to the times and allowing them to formulate my life. © Jackson Wargo 2010
8.
Yell at me your problems of the world and relay to me your dreams of saintly girls who love the smell of gasoline and cigarettes and how none you know will be like that you suspect explain to me just how your troubled mind has still found better things about which to write you tell me love has broken all your body's bones but you have a home closer to Heaven than my own, than my own. So in my vision, I am sitting singing songs I've not yet written that are carried by the New York sun and breeze. Get in a car with my brother, say goodbye to my mother, with the trouble of a lover far behind me. Play for me the music's perfect jazz let your fingers move unnaturally fast combine your mood with thoughts that you can sing, and swear to me you're improvising. Be the model life that will live long and without words show me I'm mixing mine all wrong. Remind me who I was before I hurt— I'm tainted by love and song and can't remember So in my vision, I am sitting singing songs I've not yet written that are carried by the New York sun and breeze. Get in a car with my brother, say goodbye to my mother, with the trouble of a lover far behind me— And California may or may not miss me. © Jackson Wargo 2011
9.
There were fireworks for half an hour And you were singing some song I didn't care to remember. You were honestly and unequivocally the only thing about which I could think You were sitting up, careful not to lean on love As I picked the skin off the side of my thumb And whispered in your ear so I could smell your hair, Or get as close as I could to kissing you right there. You looked at me, laughing quietly, Focusing fireworks in your periphery. Then turned back your head, and I lost your attention That at least I held for a few seconds. I consciously pressed against your body, and I noted that you were not moving. And it was then I knew, you were existential truth Because my guardian angel spoke in vagueness of you. © Jackson Wargo 2011
10.
The Summer’s Salt Last night I dreamt our hearts were still magnets inside our chests And with one distant pull, we were rendered alone and uncomfortable We let the distance be a job for the compass entirely Until our sides did flip, and we found attraction in opposites Today I woke still feeling the remnants of last month’s stroke That took half my mind into dimensions absent of space and time Just an empty hall in which all my screams echo off the wall And on a screen plays a slideshow of your last night with me And I still taste the summer’s salt from the asphalt That kissed my crown while I was tumbling upside down. When I missed your lips, I couldn’t catch my grip, And I pulled my shirt until the seams began to rip To make you watch my heart as it fell apart But you gave me optimistic hope of a restart. So I drove home not feeling as alone As I should have if I only could have known. Now it seems this room has become more constant than you And my focused eyes view your ghost as a blessing in disguise. But if these walls could hear, they would remember everything that I’ve shared, And if this light could see, it would find you and bring you back to me And fill you with the summer’s salt from the asphalt That kissed my crown while I was tumbling upside down. When I missed your lips, I couldn’t catch my grip, And I pulled my shirt until the seams completely ripped But you couldn’t watch my heart as it fell apart But you gave me unrealistic hope of a restart. So I drove home not feeling as alone As I should have if I only could have known, Or seen, or had the courage to believe, In every verse of written word that you just do not deserve. ‘Cause it’s getting harder to believe each time you tell me you still love me— I bet you’re just lying out of loyalty. And I’m not certain I know how to lay all my armor down, And let you, and let you live and fuck around. Now that I’ve measured the cost, I’d never choose to have loved and lost, Lest I lose and let the losing continue… So when you hear this, I hope you cry. I hope the tear salt burns your eyes. I hope that little piece of me inside you dies. © Jackson Wargo 2011

credits

released November 30, 2013

All songs written, arranged, and produced by Jackson Wargo
Engineered, mixed, and mastered by Billy Centenaro
Additional engineering by Jackson Wargo
Album artwork by Ari Elefterin

Recorded at The Record Company (Boston, MA), The Zoo @ Thugz Mansion (Brookline, MA), Mix One Studios (Boston, MA), The Wargo House (Cypress, CA), and The San Jose House (Long Beach, CA) between April 2012 and April 2013.
Mixed and Mastered at The Zoo @ Thugz Mansion (Brookline, MA) April – September 2013

Musicians:
Jackson Wargo – Acoustic & Electric Guitars, Glockenspiel, Piano, Banjo, Vocals, Percussion, Organ, Synthesizer
Tim Kmet – Drums, Vocals
Dan Reckard – Piano
Paige Chaplin – Vocals
Aaron Blumenthal – Tenor Saxophone
Josh Shpak – Trumpet
Yichun Teng – Trombone
Lito Hernandez – Alto Saxophone
Collin Pastore – Pedal Steel
Billy Centenaro – Electric Guitar, Vocals
Jeff Kinsey – Electric Bass
Will Story – Electric Bass
PJ Duffy – Upright Bass
Weasel Bleu – Upright Bass
Warren Haggerty – Cello
Matt Politoski – Vocals, Percussion
Evan Arndt – Vocals
Evan Nachimson – Vocals
Mike Nevin – Vocals
Nick Surette – Vocals
Hadley Kennary – Vocals

Thanks to Billy Centenaro, my parents, Tim Kmet, Matt Politoski, Ari Elefterin, my patient neighbors and roommates, Dan Reckard, Ben Gordon for letting me use his piano, Paige Chaplin, the San Jose family for letting me use their house, Aaron Blumenthal, Andy Carballeira, Daniel Wargo, Nick Surette, all of the musicians who played on this album, the generous people at Mix One Studios, Hadley Kennary for letting me borrow her banjo, Mike Nevin for letting me borrow his glockenspiel, Collin Pastore, and everyone else

℗ & © 2013 Jackson Wargo
All Rights Reserved.

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